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Digestive System, General Hospital
The Digestive System Department caters for patients with digestive diseases with an emphasis on technical and human excellence.
The mission of our Department is to improve the quality of life of patients with digestive diseases, through the development of knowledge (research), and the transmission of knowledge and values (training).
The activity of the Department includes:
Hospitalisation Ward: this offers care services to the population in the surrounding SAP Mountain area and serves as a reference unit in Catalonia for the referral of patients with hard-to-diagnose/treat patients from hospitals in the Barcelona province (Mollet Hospital, Granollers Hospital, Calella Hospital, San Rafael Hospital, Vic General Hospital) or from level three hospitals from other parts of Catalonia (such as Arnau de Vilanova Hospital, in Lleida, or Josep Trueta Hospital, in Girona). It has 24 beds for hospitalisation for patients admitted with digestive diseases.
Outpatient Clinic: care and follow-up of the most complex outpatients from each area, from Monday to Friday.
Accident and Emergency: care by a Digestive System specialist available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Crohn’s Colitis Unit: provides social healthcare and control of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, both face-to-face and digitally. It is part of a comprehensive care plan for patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, with a particular focus on the changes they may undergo biologically, psychologically and socially. Its role as coordinating centre of the National Network of Crohn’s Colitis Care Units is directed by two medical specialists, a nurse and a research coordinator.
Motility Unit: helps patients with digestive disorders via a functional hospitalisation unit and the Functional Test Laboratory, where diagnostic tests and treatments are performed for patients with digestive conditions. This Unit enjoys a high level of national and international prestige and conducts studies of intestinal function both in terms of motility and malabsorption. This unit is part of the European Centre for Gastrointestinal Motility.
Bleed Unit: this Unit deals with patients with severe digestive haemorrhaging and has 4 semi critical beds for the treatment and diagnosis of acute (high, low or hidden) digestive bleeding. Admission is indicated in cases of severe digestive haemorrhage requiring continuous monitoring and which may therefore not be treated on a conventional ward. Direct patient care is the responsibility of the medical staff assigned to the Bleed Unit and they coordinate the participation of the rest of the team necessary who come from the following units: Digestive Endoscopy Unit, Anaesthesia Department, A&E Department, Surgery Department, Diagnostic Imaging Unit and Interventional Angioradiology Unit.
The Pancreatic Unit: addresses a high number of patients with acute pancreatitis, recurrent pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis (200 patients), as well as patients with adult cystic fibrosis (160 patients) and patients suffering from pancreatic cystic lesions.
The Digestive System Department’s teaching activity includes a degree at the UAB and the training of specialists in the Digestive System as part of the medical residents programme. The Department also participates in continuing education programmes for internal and external residents from the European Training Centre of the European Board of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
The Digestive System Department carries out significant research as part of the Physiology and Digestive Physiopathology Research Group of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute, and as part of the Gastrointestinal Inflammation and Neurogastroenterology Division of CIBERehd. We are also recognised by the Catalan Government’s AGAUR programme.
Care by a Digestive System specialist is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The Digestive System Department is a national and international academic centre of reference looking after highly complex digestive disorders in a public, university, community hospital.
Digestive system training itinerary
The teaching unit comes under the Digestive System and Liver Department which combines Digestive System, Endoscopy and Hepatology departments, although we also work in collaboration with Internal medicine, Intensive care medicine, Emergencies and Radiodiagnosis, Nutritional support and Digestive Surgery Departments.
In daily practice, resident doctors visit the patients along with their staff doctors, preparing the clinical record and making the physical examination under their supervision. They also make an assessment of the supplementary tests such as endoscopic, radiology, manometric, and anatomy and pathology examinations needed for proper decision making and to diagnose disorders of the oesophagus, stomach, intestine, colon, pancreas, liver and bile ducts. During residency, doctors get to know about the most frequent conditions in the speciality, and often have the opportunity to come across more complex cases, which are a model for interaction with other units at the hospital. In Hepatology they have the opportunity to learn about the features of severe or chronic hepatitis, or hepatic cirrhosis, as well as carrying out the diagnosis, serological tests, treatment and the possible complications, if there are any, and prevention. During their turn in Endoscopy they have gradual, supervised training that covers all from diagnostic examinations to basic therapeutic endoscopy, as well as assisting those responsible for advanced endoscopy techniques, such as endoscopic ultrasound and endoscopic retrograde colangiopancreatography.
Residents in the Digestive Department are on call for internal medicine during the first year and, subsequently, from the second year of residency onwards, are specialist on-call doctors (approximately 4 shifts per month), alongside a physically present department member.
The Digestive System Programme also carries out significant scientific work at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute and CIBERehd, with five lines of research:
We offer you a teaching programme designed following the National Council for Digestive System Speciality’s programme. Internationally the department is recognised as a European Training Centre by the European Community's European Gastroenterology Board and as a receiving centre for the UEG Clinical and Research Visiting Fellowship programme and as a collaborator in the Rome Foundation Research Institute’s Investigator Network. Treatment-wise we have membership in national units of reference, such as the Neuroendocrine Tumours Committee and the Adult Primary Immunodeficiency Committee. Furthermore, from the research point of view, our unit has been recognised as a group of excellence by AGAUR (University and Research Grant Management Agency) since 2009 and as a CIBERehd (Centre for Network Biomedical Research on Hepatic and Digestive Disorders) group since 2008.
Why practise this speciality at Vall d'Hebron?
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